


Snapshots

by halfmoonsevenstars



Category: Watchmen (2009)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:39:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfmoonsevenstars/pseuds/halfmoonsevenstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all starts with a kiss in Times Square.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots

 It is late morning on August 14, 1945, and Eileen Flynn has decided that if the Army sends her to the Pacific, she is going to hang herself from the ceiling fan in post-op with her own cheap government-issue stockings. Bad enough she spent three years traipsing all over France and Belgium and Germany in the mud and blood and piss and shit and rain and snow, praying today wouldn’t be the day her ambulance hit a land mine, playing angel-girlfriend-sister-mother to soldiers missing limbs and eyes and noses and ears—but to have to do it all over again in some stinking hot jungle, probably to get captured and tortured and raped by the Japs? No sir.

Eileen would rather die here and now when she gets her travel orders. She’s seen men suffocate before, strangling on their own vomit and blood while she wished she could just shoot them to make them stop that awful gagging noise. It’s an unpleasant thought, knowing she’ll be found with her eyes bulging and her tongue protruding swollen from between her lips, but certainly a more agreeable prospect than facing the likes of what she had to deal with in the Ardennes. Eileen never wanted to be a nurse in the first place, but it had seemed like the patriotic thing to do at the time, when she and all her girlfriends signed up at the local recruitment center the day after they graduated high school. God only knows where they are now, if they’re alive at all, Eileen thinks as she mops the second-floor corridor. It’s a testament to how incredibly sweltering the city is today that the used water in the bucket is starting to look almost refreshing. Wool stockings in this New York heat. She knows that all the silk is gone to make parachutes, but really. Who ever came up with _that_?

All thoughts of the forest, rape, and land mines are pushed out of her head by the noontime news report over the loudspeakers mounted in every ward and along every hallway; the mop falls to her shining-clean floor with a clatter, the noise overshadowed by Eileen’s attempt to process what she has just heard. It’s confirmed a split-second later by shrieks and whoops and cheers reverberating throughout the hospital.

“Well, at least I won’t itch to death as I’m swinging,” she says out loud finally, earning her a strange look from a young corporal limping along on a prosthetic leg.

Eileen laughs; he shoots her a dirty look, lurching ostentatiously now. Eileen pays him no mind. She’s free. Never has to smell disinfectant mingled with puke and desperation again. Never has to explain why a soldier will never be able to use his hand or why he can’t feel his feet because a doctor didn’t have the time. Never has to clean gangrenous wounds with bare hands because the supply truck hasn’t come yet with boxes of gloves. Never has to wash out bedpans or empty catheter bottles. This war—this fucking horrible, evil war—is over and done with for good, and she is going to take full advantage of the GI Bill she’d read about in _Stars and Stripes_ and go to college for a degree in archaeology just like she had always dreamed of doing.

“Fuck this place,” Eileen says. And, finding that she enjoyed it so much the first time, she says it again, much more loudly now, and turns away from her shift work.

The mop and bucket are completely forgotten as she walks toward the staircase, slowly at first, then picking up speed, her stateside-regulated white pumps clickety-clacking on the tiles and clattering down the steps until she is outside in the bright noon sunshine. Never mind that it’s ninety degrees and she’s wearing cheap wool stockings and stupid high-heeled shoes and a lumpy starched white dress with matching winged cap. She takes off at a full-tilt run down the street toward Times Square, toward the cheering and singing, where the people are festive and relieved—and above all— _whole_. If there are any maimed soldiers or pilots or sailors here, Eileen doesn’t notice them. She utterly refuses to. This day, this _one_ day, she doesn’t have to pay a lick of attention to any of them at all. But when a fat old man in suspenders and an undershirt picks her up and twirls her around, she laughs in pure frenzied delight, clapping her hands in time with an impromptu polka the Salvation Army Band is playing.

She has no time to register the presence of a tall woman wearing black in the periphery of her vision, much less the flash of a camera lightbulb going off as the woman pulls her close and kisses her deeply. Eileen doesn’t know why she returns the kiss just as fervently rather than struggling, like she knows she should. Perhaps it’s the long months in a foreign land with no reprieve but for one three-day furlough in bombed-out grey London; perhaps it’s the scent of cigarette smoke and leather with a curious underlay of violets; or maybe it’s just that she’s simply always preferred the feel of a woman’s body no matter how hard she’s tried to enjoy fucking men. Oh, and there _have_ been men; Eileen can’t remember half their names, so forgettable the experiences were. But she remembers the women, everything about them, down to their eye color and shoe size and favorite movie. When the woman lets her go, Eileen gasps in recognition. How many times has she seen that face in the papers, staring back coolly from between the Comedian and Nite Owl?

Silhouette’s red-painted lips curve into a smile, rich like cream swirling through coffee. “I think that I could use a drink. Would you like to come along?” she asks in heavily-accented English.

Eileen hears herself replying before she can even think about it, “I’d love to,” and is awarded Silhouette’s arm around her waist as they head to the nearest bar, a smoky Irish pub packed to the gills with secretaries and delivery boys given the day off in celebration. They manage to stuff themselves into a corner, where the black-haired superhero pays for all of her drinks and laughs at all the filthy jokes she learned in aid stations. It’s a good place to be on a day like this, Eileen thinks.

The conversation moves slowly, as is always inevitable when you spend the better part of ten hours sitting in a bar with someone utterly fascinating, out of the realm of the lighthearted banter and into more serious territory. It begins when Silhouette reveals the source of her accent.

“What’s a woman like you doing here in New York, all the way from Austria?” Eileen asks, knowing she sounds like a parody of the femme fatale in a bad detective movie.

Silhouette shrugs and takes another sip of Stolichnaya. “I arrived six years ago on Ellis Island and this is as far as I got from there.”

“Was it the war? That made you leave, I mean.” Eileen flushes. She probably sounds like a total fucking idiot.

“You could say that. Though I left before Hitler’s army invaded Poland,” Silhouette responds. “I saw the writing on the wall. He didn’t like my…kind.”

Eileen pulls out another cigarette. Before she can light it, Silhouette leans over and does it for her, just as she’s done for the past dozen or so, then snaps her battered silver Zippo shut and sets it back on the table next to the ashtray.

“I suppose not. They don’t much like us here either in America,” Eileen says, the memory of Beatrice welling up suddenly—blonde, petite, green-eyed Beatrice who in April had requested a transfer to another unit the next day because she couldn’t face Eileen after what they’d done, Beatrice with whom she’d had a whisper-screamed argument in the supply room when Eileen found out about the transfer request being granted, Beatrice who had called Eileen disgusting  and unnatural and told her she was lucky Beatrice hadn’t reported her for being a sexual pervert. Eileen had slapped her so hard she split Beatrice’s lip, then run off to sick bay with a severe migraine, which kept her there for two days and caused her to miss Beatrice’s departure. Which had been just as well, really. Eileen didn’t sleep a whole night through again until the news came over the wire that Hitler had killed himself.

 “I meant Jews.” Silhouette smiles. “But at least I got out before they started putting us into ghettoes. I got a false identification card identifying me as Hanna Flohr, a women’s prison guard, and pretended I was on leave to go home to Emden. I simply kept going until I got to the German-Dutch border, and then I made a dash for it. I don’t think anyone even noticed me.”

Eileen’s mouth drops open to reveal a perfect cherry O of surprise. “You’re a Jew?” she asks incredulously. “God in Heaven. What would my mother say?”

“A good Irish Catholic girl with the likes of me? I don’t know about your mother, but after she recovered from the shock, _mine_ would roll her eyes and say, ‘Well, at least she makes a good living’,” Silhouette replies, and laughs.

Eileen laughs too, but says after it has run its course, “I hate nursing. I really, really fucking hate it. Long hours, disgusting tasks, no thanks from anyone.” It’s the first time she’s ever said it aloud. Her eyes go wide at the admission, and she flushes again, this time with guilt. “You must think I’m awful. I know it’s…necessary. We must have nurses. Our boys depend on us.”

Silhouette catches Eileen’s free hand in her own and squeezes it gently. “I don’t think you’re awful. Sometimes I resent it, too, being depended upon by so many to keep the city safe.”

Eileen isn’t aware that she has been holding her breath until Silhouette makes her reply, and it comes out in one great big relieved whoosh. “I think I could use another gin and tonic.”

“I have gin at home,” Silhouette says. She smiles, but there is a crinkle of apprehension around her dark eyes. “It would be less noisy and crowded there. Do you want to…?”

Eileen stands up immediately. “What are we waiting for?”

The subway ride seems interminably long, but finally they arrive, and drink the remaining half of a bottle of Seagram’s in between dancing to Benny Goodman’s band, playing a special program in celebration. Eileen knocks into the kitchen table as they’re fox-trotting and sends it sliding a few inches; they both laugh wildly, and Silhouette kisses her for a second time. They wind up in bed a few minutes later, and neither of them gets much sleep at all that night.

It is morning on August 15, 1945, and she is ninety-percent sure that she is in love.

When she arrives late for first shift with her Victory rolls haphazard and lipstick missing entirely, it is merely assumed that she had been out celebrating a little too hard. The dark circles under her eyes certainly attest to it. She is frankly surprised that the MPs don’t arrest her for dereliction of duty, but, then again, half of them are huddled over various waste receptacles, as is every single one of her superiors. Eileen leaves work the very moment her shift is up, not bothering to stop and change, or to even return the see-ya-laters from her coworkers, before taking the downtown 1 to 23rd Street. The Chelsea looks different in the daytime, its neon sign faded against the bright summer sunlight.

“Forgot my lipstick,” Eileen says boldly, hiding a grin at the astonished look on Silhouette’s face. “Can I come in?”

The door swings wide open.

It is late afternoon on September 29, 1945, when the C.O. calls Eileen into his office.

He hems and haws for a while until she asks him to cut the bullshit and tell her why she’s really there. Eileen has been recognized as the woman on the cover of _Life_ magazine; the fat old man in suspenders ratted her out in exchange for a substantial sum; everyone’s been speculating for weeks now as to the identity of the mysterious nurse. The colonel hands her a stack of papers. The only important words on them are “dishonorable discharge”. She merely removes her dog tags and tosses them onto her former superior’s desk, crumpling the papers into her pocket as she walks out. Eileen takes a taxi this time, not wanting to wait for the subway.

In the taxi she removes those hateful fucking stockings and stuffs them under the seat, giving the driver a whole dollar tip and a blinding-white smile when she alights in front of the hotel. It fades when Silhouette asks her if she has lost her fucking mind and then disappears entirely when she realizes that they are going to have their first argument. Eileen winds up breaking a few plates for punctuation; Silhouette stomps her feet, putting dents in the hardwood floor with the heels of her boots. When the fight runs out of steam, they make love on the wobbly-legged table.

“My name is Ursula,” the woman on top of her says, just before Eileen comes.

Eileen moans, “Oh God, oh Christ, oh Jesus, oh _fuck_ ,” anyway when she does, instead of Ursula’s name.

They set the discharge papers on fire in the kitchen sink and light cigarettes from the flames. Ursula nearly chokes on her Lucky Strike laughing about it, teasing Eileen that she’s a blasphemous little shiksa. Eileen laughs too, because she doesn’t believe in God; she hasn’t since she stepped off the transport truck in Dieppe to find the beaches stained red with the blood of dead and dying men littered amongst the smoking carapaces of Churchill tanks. She’s amazed that Ursula can still believe in such a concept as God after what was done to her people, or even after the smaller-scale horrible things she’s seen fighting crime. If there is a Hell, Eileen figures that she has already done her time and then some, so it really doesn’t matter a good goddamn what happens next. She pours them each a drink from the bottle of Stolichnaya in the icebox, and they curl up on the sofa to listen to Jack Benny.

They make love again when the show goes off—in bed this time, with Eileen on top. Ursula gasps something that sounds quite a lot like, “Ich liebe dich,” as she comes, and gets up afterward to rummage around in the top drawer of the dresser. Before Eileen can ask what she’s looking for, or to tell her to mind the lamp sitting on the bureau, Ursula crows in triumph.

“I _knew_ I had it,” she says, and holds the object up, between thumb and forefinger: the spare key to her apartment shines brassy-gold. It doesn’t sparkle half as much as Ursula’s eyes when she hands it to Eileen.

It is mid-morning on December 25, 1945.

Her Christmas gift to Ursula is a gold-plated cigarette holder; Ursula’s to her is a silver heart on a wisp-thin chain. Mothman drinks too much eggnog at the party later that night and catches Eileen under the mistletoe. She steps aside with a polite grin, but he blocks her exit with his huge wings. She can smell the brandy on him; it’s practically seeping out from every pore.

“I caught you under the mistletoe,” he slurs. “You gotta kiss me.”

“It’s after midnight,” Eileen points out. “It doesn’t count anymore.”

“Sure it does. Just a l’il kiss.” Mothman moves in closer, his hands slipping around her waist. Eileen squirms at his touch; it’s like being handled by a pair of nervous flopping trout. His fingers tighten, and she wonders where the fuck Ursula’s gone off to, why she isn’t here. Her lips clamp shut in anticipation of a sloppy boozy tongue prying between them.

And then her eyes meet the Comedian’s; Eileen wonders when he arrived. She hopes he won’t just laugh it off, like he does everything else, but her hopes aren’t too high. He makes her nervous, even though he’s always making a point to tell Eileen all of his best hilariously dirty stories from the Pacific. He frowns, an expression which Eileen finds completely incongruous; it’s so incongruous that now _she_ feels like laughing. But she doesn’t. The Comedian taps Mothman on the shoulder.

Mothman swivels his head to look at who is interrupting him, and smiles when he sees who it is. “Oh, hey. You wanna Christmas kiss from Eily when I’m done with her?”  
  
The Comedian shakes his head. “Nah, she ain’t my type. C’mon, buddy. The photographer’s here and wants to take a special picture for the paper, all of us together.”

“Just a kiss first, one little kiss,” Mothman wheedles.

“You’re so sloshed you’ll pass out midway through and crush her to death when you fall on top of her,” The Comedian says, taking Mothman by the arm and starting to pull him away. The amusement in his voice doesn’t reach his eyes. “Besides, didn’t you bring a date? Forget ‘er. There’s other girls. Lots of ‘em prettier than _this_ skinny bitch.”

Eileen forgets to be insulted by that, and is thoroughly relieved when the photo session is over with and they can go home. She doesn’t want to tell Ursula about it, which is a good thing because Ursula already knows, so now she doesn’t have to explain what happened and feel like a damn fool.

“I’m sorry,” Ursula says finally as the taxi rounds the corner onto 23rd Street. “Byron…he doesn’t know when to stop drinking. He doesn’t always know what he’s doing when he’s had too much.”

“I know. And don’t be. He didn’t do anything but hurt my pride,” Eileen responds, sliding the heart pendant along its chain back and forth, the zinging noise it makes drowning out her thoughts on the matter, which Eileen considers closed from this moment.

They have a drink in the kitchen before bed. Eileen collects Ursula’s empty glass, but before taking it over to the sink, she bends down and kisses Ursula, who asks afterwards, “What was that for?”

Eileen smiles. “It’s the kiss I wanted to give _you_ under the mistletoe.”

It is early evening on June 6, 1946.

 Ursula comes home having twisted her ankle, entering the apartment supported between Nite Owl and the Comedian and trailed by that snotty Silk Spectre and her manager. She doesn’t like him, not one bit. That slimy bastard is up to something—and if Spectre cracks one more fucking mick joke, Eileen will slap the perm right out of her poodle hair. Eileen sets them all up with a drink and a few ashtrays on the kitchen table while she tends to Ursula. Nite Owl has a split lip, so Eileen gives him a bag of frozen peas to put on it to at least keep down the swelling. They discuss all sorts of things as Eileen bustles around the kitchen trying to make herself useful, but in the end she gives up and goes into the living room to listen to the nightly news instead. It’s the second anniversary of D-Day. Eileen changes the station to something more agreeable than reliving that particular segment of the war with teary-eyed remembrances of the fallen on Omaha Beach—she sees them every night when she closes her eyes anyway. For her, the only good thing about it, the only day that matters, is the day she met Ursula.

They finally depart a little after midnight amidst cheery farewells, and Ursula joins Eileen on the sofa.

“Have you been out here this whole time by yourself?” Ursula asks.

Eileen shrugs. “It’s no big deal. Kitchen was crowded anyway.”

 “You know you’re always welcome to stay.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Am I?”

“Of course you are. You don’t have to disappear when they come round,” Ursula says, frowning. “I don’t like Silk Spectre or Larry any more than you do, but what harm can they do?”

Eileen lights a cigarette in lieu of a response.

It is late at night on October 2, 1946 and an emergency meeting of the Minutemen has been called.

Ursula is uneasy; they rarely have much need for these kinds of meetings anymore, and she vomits twice before they leave the apartment. Her fingernails are bitten down almost to the quick, ragged and sharp, and they hurt when she digs them into Eileen’s palm on the cab ride over. But Eileen doesn’t say a word, just squeezes back as Ursula tries to make herself as small as possible in the back seat. Eileen tries to claw Larry’s eyes out when they throw Ursula out of the group; it takes both Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice to pull her off him. She avoids lock-up thanks to some smooth talking by the Comedian, and as she looks back over her shoulder when they exit the trophy room, she catches the expression on his face: it’s something very like regret. He’s young, she thinks, and he’ll get over it.

When they get home, Ursula peels off her costume slowly, reluctantly; she begins to put it on a hanger as usual but instead wads it up and hurls it into the corner with such vehemence that she misfires and knocks over the lamp on the dresser they share. The bulb shatters on impact with the floor despite the shade protecting it, and after Eileen manages to screw another one into the socket amidst much swearing, she turns around to see Ursula slumped on the edge of the bed in her bra and panties, mascara-stained tears streaming down her face. She has forgotten to remove one of her gloves. Eileen gently tugs it off and throws it in the corner, where the glove lands on top of a scarlet sash curved upward in a mocking smile.

“We’ll be all right. We don’t need those fuckers, not when we’ve got each other,” Eileen says, putting her arms around Ursula’s waist. Ursula covers her face with her now-bare hands and begins to shake with mute, violent sobs. Her eyes are so swollen the next day that she can barely open them; Eileen has to chip through the block in the icebox to make compresses, which end up doing no good anyway, and Ursula doesn’t leave the apartment for a week.

It is early morning on November 23, 1946, and the flash of a camera lightbulb goes off to illuminate a ruined bedroom.

Eileen Flynn is wearing a pair of cheap stockings, but she is not standing up or sitting down or even hanging from the ceiling fan. The stockings are on her legs right where they belong; it’s the necklace she’s wearing that concerns the detectives—it’s not the one she was given for Christmas. This one is a thick band of maroon and sticky to the touch, trailing off where it meets rumpled sheets. Ursula’s wearing one to match, her dark eyes wide with surprise at having been caught wearing jewelry at all.


End file.
